Giving Compass' Take:

• Caroline Bauman, writing for Chalkbeat, reports on Sharon Griffin, a Tennesse school district leader who plans to reconnect the state-run district with the community of Memphis to better academic achievement. 

• How will community involvement as well as parent involvement strengthen Griffin's cause?

• Read about whether or not Detroit schools are also making a comeback. 

In a crowded room at a community center in a north Memphis neighborhood, the leader of Tennessee's turnaround district takes a microphone and addresses the parents and students gathered.

“I’m here because we care deeply about your students, and we know we can do better for them,” Sharon Griffin told the crowd. “We have to do that together.”

This would be one of more than three dozen community events in Memphis that Griffin would speak at during her first six months on the job. The gatherings have ranged from this parent night in Frayser to a luncheon with some of the city’s biggest business leaders. And Sharon Griffin’s message remained unchanged: Stay with us, we’re going to get better.

“One of my biggest goals was getting our communities to think differently about the district,” Griffin told Chalkbeat this month. “People only interact with the superintendent or the central office when there’s an issue. We want to meet people where they are and tell them what we are going to do for them.”

When Griffin became the latest leader of the Achievement School District in June, she said one of her biggest priorities would be reconnecting the state-run district with the community it serves most — Memphis.

Griffin, a turnaround veteran from Memphis, has been assigned the task of improving academic performance and the public perception of the state district.

Researchers, as well as community members and parents, have said that the district should be seeing greater academic progress after six years. Griffin told Chalkbeat that one of her big priorities will be helping the district better its teaching workforce, which she believes will help improve test scores.

Read the full article about a Tennessee school district by Caroline Bauman at Chalkbeat.